Today's Labour News

This news aggregator site highlights South African labour news from a wide range of internet and print sources. Each posting has a synopsis of the source article, together with a link or reference to the original. Postings cover the range of labour related matters from industrial relations to generalist human resources.

BL Premium reports that the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) health department published a circular last week banning the recruitment of foreign doctors.

This came amid a wave of xenophobic attacks and deadly violence that has heightened tensions between SA and its African trading partners. The department said it wanted to make space for newly qualified locals who were returning from training in Cuba. The department retracted the circular on Wednesday for reasons it has yet to explain, according to the national health department and SA’s biggest doctors’ union, the SA Medical Association (Sama). In the circular, dated 4 September, KZN’s acting head of health, Musa Gumede, said the recruitment and employment of foreign health professionals had been suspended. He advised that the department had recruited “a huge number” of SA citizens to be trained as doctors in Cuba, and would have insufficient posts and funds to absorb them unless the recruitment and employment of foreign doctors was halted. The KZN health department apparently employs 336 foreign doctors from 57 countries. Sama’s Mvuyisi Mzukwa commented that the directive was ill-considered and also puzzling, as government policy prioritised the hiring of SA doctors over foreign nationals.

Read the full original of the above report by Tamar Kahn at BusinessLive (paywall access only)